


Nightingale, Alone

by Mhalachai



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-18
Updated: 2008-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mhalachai/pseuds/Mhalachai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romana has failed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightingale, Alone

**Author's Note:**

> _Setting_ : During and after the end of the Great Time War; and then in _Parting of the Ways_ (1x13)

She had failed.

Romana tore through the destroyed, deserted streets in the Citadel, not looking down at the ravaged bodies of her people lying in the rubble. It was her fault, all her fault. She had declared this final war on the Daleks, she had made the choices that spiraled down to the bombardment of the seat of Gallifrey's power. All because she had thought she had _known_ the Time Lords could not fail.

She, Romanadvoratrelundar, Lady President, War Queen and Mistress of the Nine Gallifreys. What grand titles to have bestowed on the destroyer of a people.

There was only one chance, one desperate wild hope, that the Doctor would arrive in time _(in time! what irony befitting a Time Lord)_ and would be able to launch the final attack. They had planned in secret, he and her, equally culpable in their actions, late one hollow night as the losses mounted. It wasn't just for Gallifrey they planned, they tried to justify. It was all of creation they needed to protect, for what else was a Time Lord?

So Romana ran toward her long-ago borrowed TARDIS, ran to do anything to _fix this_ before every one of her people died and the Daleks ruled the universe.

Then, in the space of a heartbeat, as she flung the lever to move the TARDIS into the time vortex, she felt a raw wave of grief and pain not her own burn through her mind, a _there is no other way_ , and just as the TARDIS slipped halfway into the time vortex, everything exploded around her.

~~~

She fell.

The time vortex surrounded her, clawing at her as she fell in every direction at once. Fragments of the shattered TARDIS fell with her, and she screamed as she saw everything, every time, everywhere, all at once.

Romana went mad as she fell.

She saw everything. Time Lords removed from the universe by the Doctor's destruction of Gallifrey, the burning of the forests where she had played as a child, the collective knowledge and wisdom of a proud race erased from all space and time.

Her people, destroyed.

Her enemy, alive.

The Daleks hid in the shadows of the universe, survived where Time Lords fell, and Romana wept bitter tears. She gabbled, she raged, she screamed out for vengeance and justice, but there was none to be had. She would never achieve justice _(just is)_ or revenge upon her enemy.

The Doctor, last of the lonely Time Lords, skipped through time unaware of his failure.

She screamed to him as she fell, but he heard her not. He danced among the stars with his humans, spinning and mourning and _not seeing_ that he had failed, that their enemy lived as he walked the stars amongst the humans.

Romana knew these humans and yet did not. She pulled faint memories to her from before she _(killed them all)_ caused the _(genocide at my command)_ destruction of her _(all dead and all her fault)_ people. Children, these humans were, unable to comprehend the universe, and yet the Doctor gravitated to them like a moth to a flame.

Forever childlike were these humans. Children's voices and children's toys and children's stories, a childish plea for justice in the night, against the monsters under the bed and the wolf hiding in the dark.

Just children, seeking justice against wrongs imagined and real.

An idea shaped itself in the madness of Romana's mind. She would become the thing hiding in the dark, seek blood from her enemy as the wolf sought blood from its prey, and destroy the Daleks hiding in the undefeated darkness.

She would become the wolf slavering at the gate.

Her lips parted and she cried out into the vortex, fear the bad wolf, and the words echoed through history, scattering amongst the stars like raindrops.

And she was heard.

The time vortex cracked and rippled, and Romana flung her screams at the rip in the fabric of her mad reality. In the span of a single thought, Romana saw, and was seen.

All the Time Lords' vengeance, the fury of the bad wolf, gathered into one small human girl who had pierced the heart of a TARDIS and looked into the time vortex.

Romana watched the girl subsume the Bad Wolf, saw her destroy the Daleks and cement her name amongst the stars, so that Bad Wolf's fury would echo forever.

Her enemy defeated, her people avenged, and all of creation survived, oblivious.

Romana closed her eyes and fell deeper into madness.


End file.
